Elizabeth Carew
Elizabeth Carew or Carey was the name of two English women who were patrons of poetry in the 16th century. Elizabeth Carew the elder Lady Elizabeth Carey or Carew, the elder (1590 fl.) was the 2nd daughter of Sir John Spence of Althorps, and wife of Sir George Carey, eldest son and heir of Henry Carey, first lord Hunsdon.Dictionary of National Biography, 64. Edmund Spenser, the poet, was her kinsman, and she took a deep interest in his literary labours. Spenser's ‘Muiopotmos’ is dedicated to her, and the poet acknowledges in the epistle the "excellent favours" he had received in her. Lady Carey is also one of the patrons whom Spenser commemorated in an introductory sonnet to the Faery Queene. Thomas Nashe, the satirist, likewise acknowledges her patronage. In dedicating his Christ's Tears over Jerusalem to her in 1593, he writes: "Divers well-deserving Poets have consecrated their endevours to your praise. Fame's eldest favorite, Minster Spencer, in all his writings he prizeth you." John Dowland, the song-writer, dedicating his First book of Songs and Ayres (1597) to Sir George Carey, speaks of the "singular graces" shown by "your vertuous Lady, my honourable mistris." The date of the death of the elder Elizabeth Carey is uncertain. Elizabeth Carew the younger A daughter of lady Carey, also named Elizabeth, was similarly a patroness of Nashe. She became the wife of Sir Thomas Berkeley, eldest son of the 11th Lord Berkeley. In in the dedication to the Terrors of the Night (1594) Nashe refers to the mother in an address to the daughter: "A worthy daughter are you to so worth is a mother .... Into the Muses societie is herself she hath lately adopted, and puchast divine Petrarch mother monument in England. Ever honoured may she be of the royalest breed of wits, whose purse is so open to her poore beedsman's distresses. Well may I say it, because I have tride it, never liv'd a more magnificent Ladie of her degree on is earth." The reference to Petrarch here plainly proves that lady Carey had translated some of his poems, but there is no trace of any of them having been published. It is just possible, however, that some of the renderings of Petrarch, which are commonly attributed to Spenser, and printed in his collected works, though they are far inferior in style to his other productions, may be from Lady Carey’s pen. Elizabeth Carey the younger, who became the grandmother of the first Earl of Berkeley, died in 1635, and was buried in Cranford Church, Middlesex. Writing The only printed literary work which bears the name of Elizabeth Carew or Carey is The Tragedie of Mariam the faire Queene of Iewry, written by that learned vertuous and truly noble ladie Elizabeth Carew, London, 1613. This tedious poem, in rhyming quatrains, is prefixed in some editions by a sonnet from the pen of an anonymous admirer of the authoress, "To Diannes Earthlie Deputesse, and my worthy sister, Mistris Elizabeth Carys." It is difficult to determine precisely to which Elisabeth Carey, whether to mother or daughter, the work is to be ascribed. The inscription above the sonnet would imply that the "Mistris Elizabeth Carye" was unmarried at the time of writing the play. The weight of probability seems therefore in favour of the theory that the Tragedie was the work of Lady Carey's daughter before she married.Dictionary of National Biography, 64. See also *List of British poets References * . Wikisource, Web, Mar. 14, 2017. Notes External links ;Poems *[http://www.bartleby.com/291/4.html Chorus from Mariam] ;About * Carey, Elizabeth